I
started posting in forums a while ago on the old lineone NNTP usenet style
server and offered mostly my help and knowledge to the technical forums.

I gleaned
a lot too from some of the Lineone crowd who helped me in the early stages
of my website development.

Some helped
me build my "cred" in the Lineone forums as I quickly became
a target for trolls with my style and speed of posting to members when
they had problems.

In fact
I`d like to pay tribute to one or two who asisted me no end with useful
information and sometimes answers to post as they helped members and myself
immensely. Celtic
Shadow and G`Dad from Webhelp,
Rae Palin and Richard
Tracey from PC Help and their contributions to me were
immensely appreciated. It was that style and community spirit that was
loved by all who posted and made for a wonderful Community spirit.

When they
changed to this style of forums (vBulletin) I stayed and continued to
post despite my reservations about it and the service gradually becoming
worse.

The forums
were started after I got to play with a few more tools that were provided
by my website sponsor Imagelink and I soon discovered that there was the
facility of adding forums via this american provided webserver.

I only really experimented after a former Tiscali Moderator posted saying
he had a set of forums on a server that was painfully slow Here
and I then replicated his forums and posted in Tiscali inviting him to
check out my efforts and offered to help him more. Here

I knew that
some people would not be happy about me helping to speed up forums that
were at that time actively anti-Tiscali moderators but I have never ever
allowed the fact that someone asked for help to sway me from helping them
unless of course it was illegal or naughty, you know what I mean.

It quickly
became clear that people disaproved as I started to get hate letters and
people signing my guestbook and stuff but I carried on helping Mark and
advised only in a Technical capacity there.

I got the
overwhelming support of Tiscali members in one of the longest running
threads on Tiscali Here

Then just
as that was coming to an end after suspicions were raised that I may in
fact be Mark Bowland, jokingly put by the then Administrator of the Forums
"Wolfy" Here
after he had heard it speculated in their hidden forum that was exposed
that showed that I and other Members had been insulted by some Moderators
there.

I posted
in PC Help to the Moderator who had said all those things about me and
he deleted the thread as it was off topic in there, but he did not answer
me in the second post I made Here

So I contacted
the Register after complaints to Tiscali HQ were ignored and they published
my story on their news site Here

The apology
to me and others was posted at the top of every forum in Tiscali for a
whole month.

That was
my last post there as despite assurances of a suitable reprimand to the
Moderator at the centre of my complaint from the Forums Community Manager,
I was recently informed that one was given, but he remains as a Tiscali
Moderator and I personally found that unnacceptable so I haven`t posted
further in their forums.

I hope that
lessons have been learned as there is nothing I see wrong in having a
"Communication" forum as it does have validity but the Administrator
must oversee that it remains professional and does not allow moderators
to mount personal derogatory campaigns to their own ends and potentially
placing the owners in a liable situation.

That did
not happen in this instance and I did not seek to gain financially from
the episode. I wished to get an apology for myself and many others who
were unfairly insulted but above all to alert everyone to what had happened
because if it could happen to one of it`s most respected posters, it could
happen to anyone.

I then started
to invite some others who were either email contacts, friends or people
I knew from Tiscali and the rest is history as these forums are on the
up and up and showing to the whole Internet Community how a set of Forums
should be run....for its members, not for financial gain and where respect
is given to all members and privacy and standards are maintained.

On my forums
I learned from these mistakes and earned the respect of my members and
they know that after what happened to me and others I would ensure that
I would never allow the same low standards to happen on my forums.

Some accused
me of being over sensitive but there was a principle at stake as Tiscali
were only interested in how security had been let down, rather than the
reputation of it`s members being attacked by some moderators in their
employ.

I would
like to say that two moderators showed me support throughout and behaved
impeccably at all times in any dealings and behaved professionally in
the "hidden" forum. My personal thanks go to Shiraz and Syke
in this regard.

For verification
purposes, despite what they said about security being breached, it was
not. The hidden forum was inadvertidly left open and was even viewable
by guests, and they have no concept of the impact of that as lot`s of
people saved those pages and have posted transcripts around the internet
at various times, and I believe will do again in the future.

That is
unnaceptable and preventable by administering properly and fairly and
not letting any content be a concern if it was leaked or becomes viewable.

I`d like
to hope that it won`t happen again, but no lessons appear to have been
learned, but you can rest assured I have and others too who voted with
their feet and post now in an environment that is professional and where
respect is key to maintain an ethos for which I`m very proud and honoured
to be a part of.

I hope this
helps you to know me a bit better but ask others as some here
and in Tiscali have known me a whole lot longer.

P.S. When
I find time I also update my website which has exceeded the half a million
visitor landmark and I have been in a magazine too, which you can see
via my homepage. Any other spare time I answer some of the several hundred
emails I get each month and post in the odd usenet forum too.